


What a Shame, She Went Mad

by bobaheadshark



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bené is in prison, F/F, Fem!Reylo, Food mentions, I promise you, Inspired by Music, Inspired by Taylor Swift's "Mad Woman", It's less depressing than I make it out to be, LGBTQ Female Character, LGBTQ Themes, Misogynistic Social Attitudes, POV Queer Character, Queer Themes, Short Story, fem!Ben Solo, reference to infertility, reference to murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25805728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobaheadshark/pseuds/bobaheadshark
Summary: Rey had hidden in the galleries during the trial, quiet as a mouse. The sun had streamed through the windows, illuminating the former Lady Snoke, whose expression was cold as marble.What good is honour to protect you,Rey thought,when the wolves await you all the same?----Benédicte Solo-Organa, a noblewoman, is sentenced to death for the murder of her husband. Rey, a villager who wishes to keep to herself, finds herself inexplicably drawn into the story.A short story inspired by Taylor Swift's song,Mad Woman.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 35
Kudos: 51
Collections: Queerly Beloved Reylo Fics, Reylo Folklore Flash Fic, Spooky Gems





	What a Shame, She Went Mad

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write queer Reylo for the longest time, so here it is, as part of the Reylo Folklore fic collection.
> 
> Thanks to @Lepak as usual for the beta!

* * *

_Does a scorpion sting when fighting back?_ _  
_ _They strike to kill, and you know I will_

The trial had been swift. Though it was conducted in accordance with due process, the verdict had been decided long before the crowd had gathered, heaving and rabid, in the courtroom.

The law of Korruskant was absolute when it came to murder in the Kingdom. Even if the killer in question was a noblewoman; even if the hands that wielded the knife belonged to the daughter of a Duchess and her Consort.

Because the accused had taken the life of not just any man. But of her husband. Lord Snoke.

The only acceptable payment for such a debt in the Kingdom was to be made in blood.

So on a Thursday afternoon, Lady Benédicte had been sentenced by the High Council to die. 

Her death would take place under the banners of star and sun. Because in the death of an old star and the birth of a new one, the rulers of Korruskant believed there would be balance. A rightful cosmic retribution: one life for another. 

As it was in the ancient books, so it would be.

Rey heard the news from Plutt, at the village tavern where she was not supposed to be. She was reaching for one of the loaves that would be left, surreptitiously, on the countertop by the innkeeper, Maz. It was a small act of kindness that had helped ensure Rey would not go to bed hungry. 

“Lady? Tsh – uppity whore. She deserves what comes to her. Her and her family, the lot of ‘em.”

It was said that Lady Benédicte had been born into the world screaming, and cursed. Duchess Organa had been the first of her name, one of the few rulers to follow in the matrilineal line.

Rey had also remembered when the old banners fell and the new ones flew. 

She had walked through the dust-covered streets, scavenging in the pockets off still-warm bodies to survive.

For all of Plutt’s cruelty, he was a cowardly little man. She knew that much, but she also knew that the world outside could be far crueler.

Had Benédicte not been the case? Rey had hidden in the galleries during the trial, quiet as a mouse. The sun had streamed through the windows, illuminating the former Lady Snoke, whose expression was cold as marble. She and Benédicte Solo are not so far apart in age – she surmises no more than ten years advanced of her two and twenty. 

From her vantage point, Rey could see the Lady swathed in heavy black cloth, her imperious back straight as a razorblade. The accused moved to clasp her hands, displaying the intricate patterns woven through her sleeves: Rey guessed that they were a Chandrilan lattice. A mark of tradition, to denote honour.

 _What good is honour to protect you_ , Rey thought, _when the wolves await you all the same?_

 _No. It was better to mind your own affairs_ , Rey thought. It wasn’t Rey’s place to involve herself in with the affairs of the rich and powerful. And the judgment had been clear, even if the High Council made fine theatre out of the deliberation. _Let fortune’s scythe fall where it may._

Plutt’s watery laugh breaks Rey out of her daydreaming. She can’t find it in herself to feel pity for the woman. Not when there is ore to melt and steel to weld at the forge. She thinks she had best hurry back, before Plutt returns and sees she hasn’t met her quota.

It isn’t that Rey doesn’t know how to fight back. But with a life measured in units and tallied in labour, the recovery time was more trouble than it was worth.

So Rey is not sure what compels her to visit the tower, later that evening. In a land of ancient things, this place had always been even older, with its high stone walls and corrugated iron gates. 

Perhaps it is a morbid curiosity that drew her out of her thin cot. Her sleep had been restless – hours spent tossing and turning – and the bread from Maz had remained untouched. The loaf is heavy in her bag now as she pads across the courtyard in search of an entrance. Tonight, the sky is attuned to her subterfuge: cloudless, with a canvas of stars painted above to light the way. 

Rey’s ability not to be noticed has always offered her a cloak of safety in times of need. It doesn’t desert her now, and it takes her mere minutes to slip past the guards at the first door. 

It doesn’t take her long to find the winding stairs that will take her underground. There’s a crunch of what she knows to be dried straw beneath her feet, but she thinks of bone. She tries to ignore the thrumming in her heart and a roaring in her ears that tells her _turn around, there’s nothing good for you here. Just monsters, and ghouls._

But she ignores it, because there is a calling, deeper inside her gut, that tells her she needs to see. 

She reaches the door. It is ancient Takodana cedar, hemmed into its frame with hinges that remind Rey of fangs. Rumour is that Takodana Wood is haunted, but Rey has never been foolhardy enough to find out. 

It is time-consuming work, trying to stay alive.

She finds the right key in her bag and slips it into the lock. It snaps open and she feels as if every inch of this place yields secrets. 

If only she knew the code that might reveal what the women who’d been imprisoned here would have said.

 _Fear not the witches, child._ They might have whispered. _It’s the people who are afraid, who will find someone to wrap their noose around._

Rey feels a chill that has nothing to do with the cold.

She takes a deep breath and presses on. _  
  
_

##

Rey finds her in the third cell. The other ones lie empty – a monument to the others that have passed through years ago, in other lifetimes before Snoke had brought back the Trials. 

Lady Benédicte sits in the far corner of her cell, curled into her large frame like a mountain bear brought to heel. There are sounds coming from the prisoner. A low, keening noise. 

It takes Rey a moment to realise that it is sobbing. 

Benédicte’s clothes are different, too. Gone are her imposing black robes and rich, long braid. The noblewoman sits in a muslin grey gown that falls to the ground like a sheath, and it is torn and dirtied in places. Her hair is shorn short, and waves that Rey imagined were once luscious are now ragged.

It is wretched. 

Fear runs molten in Rey’s veins, freezing her to the spot. She should leave. Turn around, run back, and pretend to herself that she had never seen this. What difference could she have possibly hoped to make? It was foolish.

She has no place in this story. She is nobody.

Rey takes a step backward, when her boot crunches on the floor. She curses inwardly, just as Benédicte turns to look at the cell doors.

Torchlight illuminates the other woman’s face. From her distance in the viewing gallery, Rey had not been able to see the scar.

The villagers had talked about it, of course. Whispers of a great and awful gash, a face that had never been beautiful to begin with, now split in two. As if the Lady’s violence in the palace had marred her own visage. But Rey sees it closer, now. A sharp and jagged mark, the type inflicted by a longknife. The sutures on it had been clumsy, and Rey can see angry red ridges along the mottled skin, where infection has taken.

Benédicte’s voice rattles through the dark.

“Who goes there?” 

Rey runs through several calculations. She surmises that even if Benédicte has not seen her, the Lady knows someone is there. If Benédicte lets slip to the guards that a young woman with a key had been there, Plutt may just make her triple her output at the forge for the rest of the month. There is another option, which is to run. But if Benédicte has seen her, and Rey has taken the risk to come all this way, why maintain a charade?

Rey decides to take her chances. 

“A visitor.”

Benédicte’s laugh is dry as firewood.

“Have you come to visit the town jester? You would not be the first.”

“I mean no harm.” 

“They never do.”

There is a pause as they consider each other.

“What do you want from me?” The prisoner asks.

Rey replies with a shrug. She reaches into her bag, but in the same instance, she notices Lady Benédicte reaching for something too. Large hands disappear into the shadows and wind their fingers around something pointed and sharp. 

Rey surmises that it is a piece of flint. She recognises this impulse. Because it is the same instinct for survival that has kept her alive. 

Rey thrusts the loaf towards the Lady in the cell.

“I bring an offering.”

The Lady looks surprised, and her expression morphs quickly to confusion. Rey had said it as a statement, but questions hang between them in the air like delicate webs. 

_Why are you here?_

_Why would you bring anything for a condemned woman?_

_What has compelled you to waste your time? What peace, what restitution, can be done?_

A tension settles between Rey’s shoulderblades – later, she will recognise it as defensiveness, and pity. 

But a gear must shift in Benédicte’s mind. Or if the pale colour in her cheekbones is any indication, perhaps she simply hasn’t eaten in some time. 

Rey recognises the look well.

The Lady rises from where she is seated and moves closer to Rey.

It’s true what they say about Benédicte. She is tall, and regal in her bearing – even if her eyes are exceedingly cautious. Her build is broad, and there is a haughtiness to the pinch of her mouth. Coiled power, in the way she crosses her arms and assesses Rey. 

It was also rumoured that the Lady once trained with the Knights of Ren. Rey does not doubt those rumours for a second, and she wonders what heights Benédicte might have risen to, if she had not the misfortune of being born into this world as a woman.

Uncertainty stretches between them, taut as a rope. Rey can see the distrust, curiosity, and hunger flickering across Benédicte’s face.

“How do I know it’s not poisoned?” The taller woman asks.

“You don’t.”

Pragmatism wins. Benédicte snatches the loaf out of Rey’s outstretched hand and leans against the far wall of her cell. She eats without grace, stuffing her cheeks full of week-old bread. For a while, there’s only the sound of Benédicte’s chewing, and the swish of water from Rey’s canteen as she offers that to drink. 

Benédicte swallows, and her stare is sharp.

“What is your name?”

“Rey.”

“A formidable name for a little woman.”

“I’m not so little.”

“That may be. But many have stood next to bigger men, and vanquished them.” Benédicte says, cryptically. “Is it true, what they say, about the name ‘Rey’? Rey, namesake of Kings and conquerors?

“I wouldn’t know, m’lady. I’m no King.”

“And I am a Lady no longer. I think, at this juncture, you can simply call me Bené.”

Despite their conversation, Rey is careful not to think that she and the Lady are much alike. They inhabit two worlds, and Rey finds it curious that they should meet here, in the damp and cold. In this, Rey supposes, death is a leveller. 

She thinks of a saying Maz once shared with her: _tithes and titles mean little, child. When we return to the earth, what are we but rust and bone?_

Benédicte turns to look up at the ceiling – as if she can see beyond to the sky above, as if she is already celestial-bound. Gone.

“It is good to meet you, Rey. Even if our acquaintance will be short-lived.”

Rey doesn’t know what to say to that. But she hears footsteps echoing from further down the hall, and the buzzing feeling in her veins scares her. 

So she runs.   
  


##  
  


The second night, Rey brings a meal of pilfered oats and butter. It is plain, but Benédicte wolfs it down like it is a fine feast. They both sit on the ground, Rey leaning back on the heel of her boots as her hands curl tight around the fabric of her trousers. Bené’s dress pools around her like a widow’s shroud as she eats. There’s still an uneasiness between them, but there’s a loosening in Bené’s movement and a softening in her eyes that tells Rey that there is an undercurrent of something tentative and new tugging at them both.

Rey forfeits the preamble to what comes next, given that she is staring at the condemned. 

“Is it true? What they said. That you enjoyed killing Lord Snoke?”

Bené swallows, and sets her spoon down. There is a pause as she licks an errant crumb from the corner of her mouth.

Rey hates that she notices.

“Do you want to know what Snoke told me, when he married me?”

Rey shakes her head.

“He said: ‘when I chose you, I saw what all rulers live to see. Raw, untamed power. And beyond that, something truly special.” Benédicte’s voice is harsh, and she looks beyond Rey, staring at a cliffside of grief that Rey cannot perceive. “ _I saw the potential of your bloodline._ For all of his talk of unity, and order, it was the only thing he ever wanted.” 

Rey’s voice comes out as a whisper. “An heir.” 

“Yes. And when he found out I could not bear him any child...” 

Bené seems lost in thought for a moment. Rey understands, in the silence, the vastness of Benédicte’s loss, and what she has endured. 

Rey feels her fingers twitch. She wants to reach out, tell Bené that it is alright. But Rey is not foolish enough to convince herself of the delusion that any of this is remotely alright, or that she can remedy events that have already come to pass. So she waits. 

“They named me Benédicte because my family thought I would be a gift from the gods. A blessing. The Emperor had been vanquished, and the books spoke of an arrival, of a prodigal son.” Benédicte turns her to face Rey. There is regret in her dark brown eyes, but also bitterness. “Foolish of them, for I was neither. They were good at self-denial – pretending that they had no expectations of me and what I would become. But what good is a woman with the qualities of the Skywalker blood? Too tall. Too strange. Too temperate. Too angry.”

“But surely you had a family who loved you, who cared about you –” 

“Do you think I am ignorant of how the world perceives me? The way they look, how eager they are to cast me as their villain?” Bené’s gaze is defiant. “They were _ashamed_ of me. They didn’t need to say it, but I knew.” 

“You had a choice, and you _went_ with Lord Snoke –”

“Because I thought it would be better than him bringing his army upon –”

“No!” Rey almost shouts. “The Duchess was beloved, you could’ve fought for them. Stopped the burning of forest, stopped the quotas –”

Bené rises from her place on the floor, indignant, and Rey jumps back as if she too has been burned by her own accusation.

“And why do you think I went with him? The Duchess was always more concerned about appeasing the needs of her constituents, a beloved _Mother of the People...”_ Bené spits the words out, venomous. She paces inside her cage. “I thought my family would be happier if their daughter left, that it would be simpler, I – I thought with Snoke, that somehow he might be persuaded…” 

Bené trails off. Rey is frozen in place. She wants to run, but she is transfixed. _What did I think, coming in here? What would I have done? Appeal to her humanity, rescue her? Plutt said she was covered in blood when they found her, laughing..._

 _Oh, I am foolish._

“You enjoyed it. Killing him.” Rey says.

Bené stills.

“Yes, I did.”

She crosses back to where Rey stands at the front of the cell, and stares down at her. 

“Does that make me a monster?”

She clutches onto the cell bars as if the feel of them under her hands could offer some assurance. 

“Yes.” Rey says. She doesn’t know why, or what compels her – but there is pleading in Bené’s eyes and in the moment, it only feels right to do it. So Rey reaches out a hand, and lays it upon Bené’s bruised, bone-white knuckles.

“You are a monster. But it doesn’t mean you were wrong.”

  
##  
  


Rey does not sleep well that night. She dreams of hands, large and brutal as thunder, crushing muscle and sinew into dust. The dream changes, and she’s wielding a broadsword in a snow-covered forest, stalking circles around an unseen opponent. Then, her dream takes her soaring amongst the stars, sending battalions of air and sky crashing to the ground. 

The sea in her dream is red. Crows peck at unseeing eyes. 

It does not make her feel afraid. It makes her feel triumphant.

  
##  
  


The end of the week draws near, and a calm settles over them both, for they know it will soon be time.

“May I look at it?”

Bené doesn’t answer, but moves her face closer. Rey’s hand is gentle as she reaches between the prison grate, and traces over the sutures. 

The wound is still angry, though less weeping since she applied the pumice of moss and Orakny bloom. 

“Do you think it will hurt?”, Bené says.

“No. Your wound has already healed.”

“That’s not what I was asking.”

The unspoken question is there, between them. 

_Do you think it will hurt, when I die?_

Rey can’t bring herself to look at Benédicte. 

“You expect me to answer it as someone who has seen the fray of death, and lived.”

“But did you not? Rachel, of nowhere? Kinslayer?”

Rey tries to pull away, but Bené grabs her wrist. The other woman’s hold is strong, but not painful.

“Who are you, really, Rey?”

“Let me go.”

“No, you know this deep within yourself. Who are you?” 

“I’m nobody.”

Bené shakes her head.

“Try again. Where are your parents?”

“My parents live in Kamino. Their names are Waisha and Tal An. They eke out a living as simple fi–” 

“I’ve seen the registers of every person who passes through the Kingdom, and you are not on them. You exist, and somehow, nobody knows you. Your parents were junk traders, who left you with Plutt and are now dead in a pauper’s grave. You maroon yourself here, away from the water and where you belong.”

Hesitation winds its way to Rey’s throat, and strangles her. She will not cry, or give Benédicte this power.

“How did you know?”

“Call it an instinct. The guilt you carry in your eyes.” In one movement, Bené moves Rey’s hand from her face, pushes up the sleeve, and brings Rey’s wrist into the dim light. “And your scar.” 

Bené seems transfixed by the mark, shaped like a crescent moon. Rey cannot remember how she got it, but she dreams in fractals sometimes, of voices screaming – angrily, screaming her name. Out of fear – of her.

Rey snatches her hand away.

“Then you know what it’s like, m’Lady. What it is like, to endure. And survive.”

The knowledge, the memories of what this means – sends Rey’s mind spinning. But it also gives her relief. To appraise herself of this long-buried knowledge, and find it to be true.

Bené smiles. 

“I don’t have long. But there is a world out there for you. Don’t waste it here.”

The words hang heavy in Rey’s mind as she retreats back into the shadows.

  
##  
  


It is two more nights before Rey sees Bené again. When she arrives at the cell door with food, Bené seems visibly drained. Guilt gnaws its way into Rey’s gut, which Rey tries to ignore by digging around in her pouch. 

“Back so soon?”

There’s ambivalence that still sits, glacial, between them. But Rey can feel the undercurrent of something greater within it.

An understanding.

“You had a family who loved you, who cared about you. And you abandoned them.”

“I did.”

“You knew what Snoke had planned, and you went with him anyway”

“I did.”

“In your search for purpose, you chose survival. At what cost?”

Bené is silent, but the set of her shoulders seems heavy, and troubled. 

“So here is a chance.” Rey says. “Choose differently.”

The gate to the cell opens, and Rey registers Benédicte’s surprise. The other woman scrambles up, and stares at the open door in disbelief.

“How did you find a key?”

Rey smiles.

“That is the thing you don’t understand about the underlings, Benédicte. We see what others would not think to search for.” She brandishes a small and elegant iron key. “It took me a while to figure out the shape of the lock, but I forged it myself.”

“You are a smart woman.”

Benédicte steps forward, and clasps Rey by the elbows. Gratitude washes over Bené’s face and it makes her look younger, and joyful – Rey sees her as she must have once been.

The knowledge of it stuns Rey into surprise, settling into iron resolve in her heart. She doesn’t know what about Bené has compelled her so – showing her a vista of possibility that she hasn’t yet considered. 

But Rey doesn’t stop to think. Rey steps forward, and kisses her. 

Ben feels soft and hard, all at once. Her mouth is lush under Rey’s and the feeling of Ben’s chest pressing against hers is new, though not at all unpleasant. Rey has to stand on her toes to reach her, and it is entirely worth it. To have found someone who simply understands, even if they come from different worlds.

When they pull apart, Bené smiles. Her ears peek out from beneath her hair. 

Something soft flares in Rey’s chest. Protectiveness, and affection. Rey can feel her own pulse hammering through her veins – a steady tattoo marching her towards an unknown destination.

She doesn’t yet know if there is a name for what Benédicte makes her feel. But she feels...known. She recognises their mutual darkness, their solitude, and also, their hope. 

But Rey finds she doesn’t need titles. They are enough, as they are.

“There is still work to be done here.” Rey says.

“I understand.”

_I can’t go with you. Not yet._

_I know._

Bené gently clasps Rey’s hand, and they breathe each other in. Rey places a palm over Bené’s heart, and feels the pulse thrumming steadily beneath. There’s softness in Bené’s eyes.

“Meet me in Kamino, Rey. If you make it out of this place.”

Rey nods. Though they must part, she knows whatever runs between them will not be burned away, that there is something sacrosanct between them now, and they will somehow find each other again.

Rey holds Bené’s face in her hands, and pulls her down to kiss her on the forehead. Only the ghosts are left to hear their words as they rise from the tower, and step into the open air.   
  


##  
  


Later, the priest arrives to read Lady Benédicte her last rites. The executioner’s sword is sharp and gleaming.

All they find is an open door and an empty cell. All are details that will become curious footnotes in history. In the books they will write about it, and the retellings in the years to come – they will say that the tall woman cheated death that night.

Benédicte and Rey resolve to leave it to history, to decide which version of their story holds the truth.

# Epilogue #  
  


_Museum artefact number: 2020,2407.1_ _  
_ _  
_ _Ornamental Vase, Women & Vista of Ocean _ _  
_ _Date Unknown, Est. 1073 BBY_ _  
_ _Dagoyan Porcelain_ _  
_ _  
_ _Acquired from private collection. Two female figures depicted in profile, standing on a cliffside against oceanic waves (poss. location:Doumaa?)._ _  
_ _  
_ _Taller figure attributed to popular folk legend of Saint Benédicte. Clothing pattern similar to sigil of 1070 Korruskant Revolutionaries_ _  
_ _(ref. to Prof. Kira Johnson’s research “B. Solo-Organa: villain, victim, or vilified?”)_ _  
_ _  
_ _Identity of second woman, unknown. Simplicity of robes suggest blacksmithery, or welder._  
_  
From posing and expression, the women are speculated to be of intimate acquaintance._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for giving this a try! Kudos, comments, concrit always welcome.
> 
> Some notes:
> 
> Korruskant = AU Coruscant
> 
> [Orakny](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Orakny_bloom) Flower
> 
> [Kamino](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kamino/Legends) was a planet of clones. Waisha is an anagram of sorts for [Aiwha](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Aiwha/Legends), flying creatures from the planet. Tal An is an area on Kamino.
> 
> The [Dagoyan Order](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Dagoyan_Order)
> 
> And Taylor's album release date is 2407 🤓
> 
> Find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/bobaheadshark/)!


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